Tate St.Ives Petrit Halilaj

 

Petrit Halilaj - 'Very volcanic over this green feather.'Tate St.Ives. Oct to 16 Jan 2022 

Art Therapy in the Tate! 

How everything changes - Mike Tooby, past director of the Tate St.Ives , interviewing me for an artist's residency in the 90's, said they threw anyone's application that mentioned art therapy in the bin and only fished mine out because they liked my drawings.

  I had concluded that the mainstream art world despised art therapy out of fear of being associated with madness. 

Yet now here it is - Petit Halilaj worked as a child with art therapist Giacomo Poli and this helped him cope with the dreadful consequences of the war in Kosovo. 

Now he has retrieved these vivid works, enlarged them, printed them on felt and hung them in the large gallery on knotted strings so that they form a whole forest of images - some frightening memories - some escapist fantasy - amongst which we can walk, catching sight of different views. 

Knotted string often features in art therapy case histories - symbolic of trying to keep yourself together through trauma.

 It's totally absorbing, tragic and lovely.

 These pictures have a spontaneous energy. 

This show takes your mind off your mundane worries and I emerged with that feeling of exaltation at having experienced something very important, easy to grasp and memorably moving.

 Let's hear it for art therapists everywhere - we know how potent this can be - and how helpful. 

How about an art therapist in every school?

Sailing as Therapy

 'Sailaday OK' by Richard Lannowe Hall

 I bought this book because I have met the author and was curious about his sailing therapy project.

 He explains it very well, referring to specific events, and writing vividly about it. 

There are also personal reflections and his own history of addiction which makes him so suited to working with others who need help to change their lives.

 He has shown that connections with nature and with other people are beneficial and that experiences also need to be voiced, heard and understood to make them meaningful. 

There are things I would like to be better defined in this book. For example there are rather vague references to ancient Celtic practices which I think are inevitably insecurely documented and largely imagined by inventive archaeologists and eager present day seekers of meaning. 

'Vision Quest ' is a term used without explanation.

 Richard Hall is clearly very involved with myths and ritual but doesn't refer to James Hillman who has written much on these ideas.

 He is open about the difficulties a therapist faces and the problems of funding his organisation ran into. 

The book ends without explaining exactly where Richard Hall stands re many issues or what direction his life is going in now.

 However overall I think it's a really interesting work about a very worthwhile outdoor therapy using sailing plus the workings of the group and the wisdom of the therapist.

Open Studios-notes-St.Ives 2021

 

 

 

 

 Melissa Hampson.Smith I found by chance as I walked home. She lives just round the corner and had her work outside in the small front garden - safer because of covid.

 Gaia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colin Orchard was also nearby and always uses a square format. Only recently has he started to paint St.Ives

Third visit turned out to be an unopened studio as Suzi Gutierez had gone to Penzance but her husband let me in to have a look and I admired her new press.

Interesting chats at all three places about art and galleries and memories.

On the way home, observation revved up, I took a photo of a disused phone box.

 

Grayson Perry Tapestries in Cornwall

Grayson Perry The Vanity of Small Differences Oct 3 - Jan 2 The Exchange, Penzance, Cornwall, UK These six large tapestries show the Hogarthian progress of a male character on a ' Class Journey’ using researches the artist made as he developed his 2012 tv series ' All in the best possible taste'. There were more people in the gallery than I have ever seen there apart from pre Coronavirus opening parties. All were masked and spaced and carefully examining the wealth of detail in the narratives and the way the fabric has a variety of textures. There is also a film about the weaving of the work. Grayson has produced a commentary on contemporary British life and class which can be witty and ingenious - focused on white characters. I enjoyed seeing the show. Grayson points out the art historical influences on the compositions in his lengthy written captions. I don't really like the horror vacui and the rather monotonous tones and textures but I admire the accumulation of observations which relate to class and taste. When Grayson makes a pot there is a satisfying beauty in the symmetry and form which then contrast alarmingly with the applied narrative content that can only be seen from a close look. That strange combination doesn't apply to the tapestries because although there are fascinating details to see up close you can see everything also at a distance. It's been a mammoth task to compile all the images but the all over complexity I find lessens the impact. It's well worth seeing nevertheless and admirable in its satirical contemporary relevance.

Robert Broadhurst. 'An Occurrence at Arverne' vimeo

Robert Broadhurst. 'An Occurrence at Arverne' vimeo, 7.30 mins This short video is a 'staff pick' on Vimeo with 113,000 views. After seeing it I find this is Broadhurst's first narrative film, written by him, that isn't done as a commercial advert for his usual clients - Adidas, Kanye West fashion, Armani etc which are slick glossy productions. In 'Occurrence at Arverne' there are a lot of signs that can be read in ways that betray our prejudiced expectations. A hooded black man enters a bungalow. Towards the end a police car draws up outside. Is he up to no good or has he gone round to feed the cat - who fails to show up? It's clever, subtle, and succinct. Marcus Curtis Cooke is the actor. Extensive credits are followed by slogans in block capitals such as ' BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED', 'DUMP TRUMP' and 'LOVE BEATS FEAR'

The Little Book of Humanism

The Little Book of Humanism. 2020 Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson I bought this because I am a humanist so I wanted to love it. However I don't like the unusual narrow format that means it won't stick out as far as a normal paperback in the bookcase. There may be a reason for the usual format - that it feels a more satisfactorily proportioned rectangle on which to arrange things. I don't like the quotations being often contained in a thin wriggly line, nor the photos being so lacking in contrast and by only two photographers. The illustrations are also by only two artists and some remind me of the very generalised people depicted in Jehovah's Withess literature. So it is that these visual aspects are very subordinate to the words and could have been more exciting, varied and important, could have included some great art from say Kathe Kollwitz and William Kentridge. Apart from that it can hardly be revelatory - humanism has but few basic beliefs so it's likely to be repetitive - but it does offer lots of quotes and a useful list of the writers of them with their dates. Andrew Copson and Alice Roberts have collaborated so we do not know who wrote which parts and I would have prefered them to own two distinct sections. They have decided not to alter quotes but leave the sexist 'he' where it could have been made 'he/she'. I found several writers I did not know before, lots of quotes I liked. I couldn't agree with Ingersoll that happiness is the only good, and I find the argument that eternal life would be boring is unconvincing. I wouldn't have referred to the book 'The Joy of Sex' because of an unsavoury bit in it that recommends mysogynistic sadism - perhaps Roberts and Copson got a later revised edition. My favourite bits were James Hemming on what our bodies are made of- eg 'enough iron to make a two inch nail' , Darwin on sympathy for all races and Einstein on the importance of society. I liked a Stevie Smith poem, something Protagoras said and Bertrand Russell on life as like a river that ends in the sea. I recommend buying the book - and perhaps keeping your own notebook of quotes to add to it. The profits go to Humanists UK and hopefully it will interest new people in joining a humanist group.

The Millionaires' Holiday Club

The Millionaires' Holiday Club. BBC 2. Director Simon Draper. There is a travel agent in the north of England where the starting salary for employees is £18,000. They are organising holidays that may cost per person that amount for one week. The program shows three of these young women on a work visit to see some of these luxury premises so that they will be good at selling the holidays. It also followed two couples who go on them. One were off on their travels several times a year. They wanted to see the staff as friends and kept hugging them. One of the staff explained to camera that there was in fact quite a social gap between them. The man of this couple was a quiet thoughtful person, his wife was described as being the party, and was dedicated to enjoying her holidays with some serious shopping. The other couple worked all year on their fruit farm business and took one week off to do nothing in style. The husband was prone to making heartless jokes at his wife's expense which she tolerated longsufferingly in silence. The rich holiday makers and the travel agent visitors were all shown as if they rarely had a serious thought in their heads, constantly playing their parts as happy hedonists. The staff were unfailingly playing theirs as ever devoted servants. If you've ever been to a poor world country on holiday you've experienced being many times better off than the beggars who live on the streets - which feels an insurmountable gulf which you can't alter. This is similar but on a vaster scale - these trippers keep well insulated from the poorest inhabitants, rarely leaving the hotel complex or luxury cruiser. The whole thing is nauseatingly watchable. It presents the white holiday makers and their black servants almost as if it's just a fact of nature that this huge gap exists. It shows us how enjoyable such a holiday can be - and therefore how anything that threatens this vast gap of wealth will be likely to be resisted - not as a cunning political plot but as an instinct to preserve this separate realm of wealth which the filthy rich can tell themselves is kindly giving employment to the poor, who they admire for working hard. Like a man convinced the woman he pays to pretend she fancies him isn't acting - they can imagine the hospitality staff are their faithful friends rather than the worker-dogs whose tails wag. Oh workers of the world unite.